Resurrection
by Jael K
Summary: Soulmates get an extra chance, if they choose to take it. When the Oculus blows, Sara takes that chance. (Soulmates AU for CC week.)


For Day 7 of the CaptainCanary Week: Soulmate AU. I couldn't find one that I liked enough on the lists I found, so I made up my own.

Thanks for LarielRomeniel for the beta, and also to Pir8grl!

* * *

"I think we need to talk."

No one—not Rip, not Ray, not Mick, not Miranda—argues. The energy from the Oculus is still buffeting them, and they're still on a mad race to catch Savage, but no one is going to get in the way of this.

Not even Leonard, who, still looking stunned and a bit disoriented, follows Sara to her room. He stumbles, once, as they enter the corridor, and she reaches out without thinking about it, their bare hands brushing.

Electricity surges, and Sara restrains a yelp, Leonard emitting a low "oof" of reaction. It hadn't been unpleasant, not at all, but...

Bound. Forever.

It's a lot to digest.

They're safely in her room, the door closed behind them, when Sara puts her hands on Leonard's shoulders and pushes him back to the bed and into a seated position there. He subsides, blinking at her in a way that's thoroughly unlike his usual sharp gaze.

She can't blame him. She's been resurrected, after all, although via the Lazarus Pit and not through a soulmate bond. If disorientation is the worst of his issues, he should take it and run.

 _They_ should.

Sara sighs again, closing her eyes, keeping her hands on Leonard's shoulders, feeling him, warm and breathing and wholly problematic, there in front of her.

No one knows precisely how it works, but every soulmate pair gets one resurrection—only good for one of the two, initiated by the other, and only within a few minutes after death. It's a curiously complete free pass—any injury is healed, any illness cured, and the resurrected one physically restored right to the other partner. People have been dragged from sinking ships at sea to their soulmate across the world, restored whole from burning buildings and earthquake wreckage, traumatized and disoriented, but whole and breathing.

However, it's not without cost, and that's why people don't risk it as much as one might think. Many older, longer-term couples simply chose to let go—in part to spare their partner the trauma, in part because who really wants to find that, after years together, your spouse or long-term love isn't your soulmate, after all? Or even in a short relationship—heaven knows Ray's trauma at his fiancee's death had been compounded by being unable to save her.

There are hints and clues, but no one's ever managed to figure out an airtight way to know, not short of feeling that breaking tether in your soul and reaching out and _yanking_...

Rip had saved his wife, Miranda, after Savage killed her, sending the pair of former Time Masters on their headlong quest to save their son and so many others from the immortal dictator. Kendra and Carter's situation was complicated by the other aspects of their situation, their souls taking turns hurtling forward to their next stop on their ceaseless chain of reincarnation rather than pausing to be saved by the other.

Sometimes it's simpler. Sara's sister had made a leap of faith and pulled Tommy Merlyn from death to life back in the Glades, and now they're expecting their second child.

But soulmates, once acknowledged in this way, are bound. There's a limited mental and emotional link there, after the experience, and a physical attraction that's electric. Some report that being too far from each other physically, for too long a period of time, is uncomfortable to excruciating. But on the other hand, sex between soulmates is said to be life-changing, and some say that children born of this bond are special.

And when one soulmate dies after a resurrection, both die. No second chances. No wriggle room. Hostages to fortune, in a very literal way.

If it any wonder, then, that people sometimes don't even bother seeking a soulmate?

"How long did you know?" Leonard's voice, jolting into her thoughts, is rough, broken. Sara's eyes fly open, and she stares into the gray-blue of his eyes for a second before pulling her hands away and gathering her thoughts.

"Know? Only the moment it worked." She bites her lip, studying him. "I've suspected a while. You?"

"Same." He shakes his head as if it hurts him. "In Russia...I knew I had to stop...and when Mick made me choose..."

There's pain there, and Sara's new sense of him can't decide if it's physical or mental or both. She reaches out, then recalls the earlier sparking sensation and pauses, loathe to cause any more pain. Leonard sees her pause and freezes himself, and somehow that makes things worse.

"Are you OK?" she asks, trying to fill in the space full of feelings with words. "I mean, we saw the explosion...you held the failsafe down long enough..."

Len drags in a breath and looks past her, his eyes blank and staring. "I...it ripped me apart," he acknowledges numbly as she flinches. "It hurt like hell and I couldn't breathe..." He blinks and there's sense back in his eyes as he looks at her. "And then I was on the ship, in front of you. It's still a little much to take in."

There's an echo there, of the first words he'd said to her on the ship, and it unexpectedly makes Sara smile a little. But under it, she can still feel Leonard's turmoil and oh, hell, if they can't learn to just _talk_ to each other like they used to, this is going to be bad...

But the crook persists, and she feels his sincerity as he stares into her eyes.

"Sara," he says, voice still a little ragged, " _why_?"

Sara frowns at him. "What do you mean?" she asks. "Why are we...soulmates? No one's ever really been able to figure..."

"No." Leonard shakes his head, meeting her eyes a moment longer. "You're stuck with me now," he says roughly, looking away. "You can't tell me that's what you wanted. When I mentioned the future, I didn't...I wasn't trying to...trap you..."

He seriously can't figure why she'd invoked the bond they'd both suspected was there. Sara stares at him, looking for words, then decides to just go with her prevailing emotion, which he's probably feeling anyway.

"You jerk," she hisses at him, reaching up to grab a handful of his black jacket and getting a blink of surprise. "I _chose_ to do it. To try to save you. You think I'd just let you blow yourself up without even trying, once I suspected?" She gives the jacket a shake. "I'm not the type to walk away from a challenge, Snart. You know that." They're gazing into each other's eyes again now, and Sara takes a deep breath. "And you're a challenge. I didn't plan on this. But damned if I'd just hide and let you die!"

Her voice has risen steadily throughout the response, until she pretty much yells the last three words into his face. Leonard blinks again, but tilts his head and considers her, and she can feel his mind working, the effect of her words sinking in, the reverberation of the link.

"Wow," he says finally, staring at her. "You _are_ pissed."

"No shit, Sherlock." Sara scowls at him. "You know me better than that."

"I...do." She sees him consider the truth of her words and then nod, acknowledging them. Acknowledging, further, her actions, and their bond, and what...what the future might hold.

"This is going to take a lot of getting used to," she tells him gently. "But we'll handle it together."

And with that, she lets go of his jacket, moving her hand down to take his hand again.

As skin touches skin, Sara can hear his intake of breath and her own. The sense of attraction, electric and arousing, is overwhelming for a moment, and she wonders for a moment if it will fade with time, into something warm and comfortable or if this...intensity...is permanent. Laurel would have mentioned it, she thinks, dazed, wondering if she'll always want to jump him...think it, her _soulmate_...if they so much as brush fingers.

Leonard, apparently feeling much the same thing, licks his lips, gazing down at their joined hands.

"Now, this," he says, glancing back up at her through his lashes, "could be _very_ interesting."

There's a sparkle there that'd been missing earlier, and Sara feels a matching spark of mischief in the sense of Leonard that's there in her heart, the one that now will never go away.

"It could," she acknowledges, grinning at him. "But first, we have a world to save and a tyrant to defeat. You with me, crook?"

They both know the answer. And, now, it's never going to change.

"Always, assassin. Always."


End file.
